Friday Round Up: Boy, What a Week

It’s been a huge week in terms of news and the biggest noteworthy item is pretty sad, but let’s hold the sadness for a little bit and get on with THE FRIDAY ROUND UP!

Movie Stuff

Marvel Needs Diversity:This piece talks about why Marvel succeeds and why it won’t in the future if it wont’ diversify. I really agree with it. The point that if Marvel Studios had Spider-Man and X-Men is a really good one in that they wouldn’t have really had to try to reach out and make other superhero films. Sure we would have had Iron Man, but Thor? Ehhh maybe. Guardians of the Galaxy? Probably not.

The article makes a great point about the need to try new superheros in flicks instead of having only Iron Man/Cap/Thor sequels with the occasional Avengers flick forever. Personally, I’m dying for a female driven Marvel film. I know they could make Ms. Marvel work.

Ghostbusters in Theaters: In case you didn’t know, this year marks the 30th Anniversary of Ghostbusters‘ debut in theaters. It is returning to some theaters at the end of the month. I happened to look for Ghostbusters on a local cineplex website and found that it’s showing in Milwaukee. This looks like a reliable way to find out if Ghostbusters is playing in your area.

Bad Movies Hurting Good Ones: Here’s a piece talking a bit about why bad sequels can hurt good movies. I kind of agree, but I think the wording here is off. Bad sequels hurt good franchies, not exactly the individual movies. I remember a time when being a Star Wars fan was a cool thing for geeks. Then after the prequels everyone had to state the caveat for their love. “I love Star Wars, but…” Even I have to do this: “I love Star Wars, except I kind of like the Attack of the Clones and I like Revenge of the Sith.” And then I have to hear about how terrible they are.

Despite this, my love for Empire Strikes Back never diminished in any capacity though. I love Raiders of the Lost Ark the same too. It’s just that damn caveat you have to add when you talk about the franchise. At least with Star Trek there’s so much of it (movies and TV) that that you really don’t have to specify unless asked. People don’t seem to want you to define your love for that franchise, though their are many fans that have added, “except for the JJ Abrams ones.”

Table Top Gaming Stuff

XCom the Board Game: I’ve got far too many games as it is and not enough time to play them, but the idea of an XCom board game has really peaked my interest. I love the turn based strategy versions of X-Com and this promises more of it. The only thing that makes me weary of it is the web app/mobile device stuff. How far down the road will that app be available to download to a new phone, or will the site that runs the browser version stay up forever? I guess X-Com fans are pretty resourceful though. Hell, they’ve been keeping the original game alive for years… so they’ll probably find a way around it.

Mini Dungeon Crawler: I was made aware this week of a neat little table top game that’s a tribute to JRPGs called Super Turbo bit Crawl FX: Alpha Xtreme. It looks fun, but the downside is that it’s in Kickstarter phase right now. If you could go over there and fund this thing I can buy it via regular retail, that would be awesome.

Sad Stuff

Robin Williams: Well, the most obvious thing to talk about this week was the death of Robin Williams. Not only was it unexpected, but it was by suicide and even worse, he was suffering from the early stages of Parkinsons. The guy had some major depression issues and it’s terrible that he couldn’t make it through them.

I’ll be honest, I hated his stand up, but I loved his acting. He was so great in so many movies. I really liked him in the oddball film One Hour Photo and his appearance on Louie was oddly touching. Only in the last couple of days did I find out that he was also a huge geek. He named his daughter after Zelda from Legend of Zelda and one son after Cody from Final Fight. He even played Warcraft and read comic books. You can read more about all that here.

What a bummer.

BUT there is a bright side. I realize that people grieve in their own ways, but some fans… well let’s just say having all the characters that the person played grieving for that person is a tad over the top.

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But if you Kickstart the game at the $40 level, you’re saving $10 over MSRP and you don’t even have to leave your house to get it :D I’m probably in for the portable version as I don’t really have any gaming buds in my immediate area and yet I collect games…